The average person starts out breakfast with a large cup of coffee with half and half and NutraSweet(a poison) and a sugar and white flour disaster that is a bagel and butter. At work it’s another cup of coffee and lunch at 12:30 is usually a large deli sandwich with chips and a pickle and a diet cola. Nothing close to being what it is nature, full of bad fat, sugar and salt and a calorie bomb at probably 700-900 calories. Being carb and HFCS addicted and doing what the geniuses and general Foods and Kraft have engineered us to crave, we want something salty, sugary or fatty by 3pm so we run down to the newsstand or commissary and pick up a HFCS laden granola bar and another diet cola. By 5:30 and quitting time we are starved as we drag our tired rear-ends home after maybe a half hearted or insufficient workout at the local gym. We then have go what we think is healthy, farm raised salmon devoid of most of its Omega 3 and deep pink color, broiled in oven with a canola based oil and more salt laden on top, a starch like white rice or a white potato with butter and a tiny portion of cooked beyond recognition vegetables and a small green salad(yeah!) destroyed with low Ranch dressing full of salt and HFCS(boo!). We then plop down with the kids on the sofa for some mindless TV and about 2- 3 hours later at 9pm just when the scientists at Campbell’s Soup and Heinz thought you would you crave guess what salt, sugar or fat…so you head to the fridge or pantry and gobble down a 3 scoops of low fat vanilla ice cream or half bag of sour cream and onion baked chips. So you have woofed down about 500-1000 calories in a day what your body needs to maintain it’s current mass and guess what over the month and years you begin gathering fat around your organs and then you ass and belly, 5-10 lbs a year and by 50 you are a disaster…50lbs overweight, with HBP, aches all over, bad skin, no energy, bad mood, low sex drive, mental fogginess.
I was there and then I said ENOUGH. I went on a clean diet, not one out of a book or guru. I began giving my body what it needed not what Kraft engineered me to crave. I began eating lots of fresh veggies, 10 servings a day, the base of my diet, grass fed beef, organic chicken and wild caught fish, raw nuts, lots of water, delicious fruits and seeds. Began doing real workouts not stair machine loafing it in the gym pretending to be working out wastes of my time. Did I pay more for good food, hell yea, about 50% more but I dropped my Netflix, my buying of 50 bucks worth of ITunes music a month, began walking, working out and well lots of loving for entertainment with GF instead of eating out so much. Anyways I lost 70lbs over in 10 months and at 48 I can out work and out wit most of my 20 something peers at work. Have the energy and stamina when I was 25 and feel so much different. Bottom line is America is addicted, lazy and looking for someone to blame for our exploding waistlines.
Finally some sanity in this thread. Thank you. You are exactly correct. Obesity (as well as the associated chronic diseases) are directly caused by diet: particularly carbohydrates and pro-inflammatory oils.
Clearly man’s genome hasn’t changed in the past 50 years of rampant obesity and diabetes; nor has our behavior. We all didn’t suddenly get lazy. What has changed is our diet. We are stuffing ourselves with carbohydrates (refined or not), sugars of every sort, and bad oils. At the same time we are shunning healthy oils such as saturated fat.
Sir,
You have hit the nail on the head. The main difference today is not whether we live in a neighborhood that is set up in a grid style or has cul de sacs. How absurd!! The difference is the amount of processed foods that we eat. Look, anyone over 50 can tell you that when growing up, people ate fast food like McDonalds or Hardys about once a month as a treat. Now, people eat at places like that three times a week!!
Yes, it is a combination of healthy eating and exercise. However, the biggest change in our lives from 30 years ago is the amount of processed foods in our diet. All of this stuff is loaded with processed sugars, high fructose corn syrup and sodium. Lots of sodium! We also can’t forget all the steroids we are consuming because they have chickens and cows being pumped with them. If you start eating better, you will have more energy and want to have more and better workouts.
Pickles don’t make you fat.
Ding, ding, we have a winner! Good for you. The more I read about our food supply, the less frankenfood I consume.
Yep...what you said...I am 25 years older than you and in best shape of my life..
And can probably win any sprint with “normal” 20+ year old women...You are what you eat.
Dang, now I want an HFCS laden granola bar...
(sigh)
I’m just starting my journey back to (I hope) better health. Two days of salads and I’m about ready to crawl on my hands and knees to Five Guys and get a cheeseburger.